B2C · note-taking app

How Evernote grows

1 tactic and 2 figures from 1 interview.

About Evernote

Outcome: Acquired by Bending Spoons

As described in the interviews, not independently verified.

Evernote's tactic

Bending Spoons · B2C · app acquirer and operator

Buy mature apps, let go of almost all staff, and run them on one central team

Evernote kept ~2 of hundreds of staff and still rates 4.4 stars; company valued at $11B

Bending Spoons buys apps/subscription businesses (e.g. Evernote, AOL) and within the first month lets go of ~97% of the acquired employees, lifting the product onto its existing ~600-person team rather than shutting it down. Then optimizes pricing and marketing, where it is expert. Hosts add: products with years of locked-in user data (Evernote) tolerate higher prices, and a large user base (AOL's older email users) can be cross-marketed other apps.

Workedportfolioexit-ma

Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2025-11-12

Evernote by the numbers

Metric	Value	Context	Said in
team size	2 people estimate	Evernote employees Crowley believes Bending Spoons kept, from hundreds before the acquisition	Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-11-12
app rating	4.4 stars	App Store rating after the Bending Spoons takeover and layoffs	Sub Club by RevenueCat 2025-11-12

Topics

Buying and selling apps1 Running a portfolio of apps1 Pricing a subscription app1

Interviews

Why AI Probably Won’t Kill Your App (But Ignoring It Will) — Eric Crowley, GP Bullhound · Sub Club by RevenueCat · 2025-11-12